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St Mary
and St Andrew, Horsham St Faith

This
great ship of a church sits hard against the
village high street, raised up behind a wall: it
is an urban setting. The contrast between nave
and chancel is interesting, a curiosity: the
retopped tower and nave are familiar, a grand
late medieval church with aisles and clerestory,
but the chancel is an earlier one, a big Early
English structure, also with a clerestory. The
south side is faced, but the east end is a great
chequerboard expanse, in which the the three
lancets seem tiny, and so low as to be out of
proportion. Was the roof raised at the time the
nave was built, perhaps, and the clerestory
added? Or was it always intended to rebuild, but
the Reformation intervened?

The
dedication is also a curiosity. The St Faith in
the village name comes from the Priory of St
Faith, established here by Robert Fitzwalter
after a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostella in
the years after the Conquest (legend says that he
tried to build it first at nearby Horsford, but
it fell down). Part of the Priory survives as a
private house. St Mary and St Andrew is clearly
not a possible medieval dedication, but in the
south porch vaulting, a boss shows the
crucifixion of St Andrew.

Coming
here in the autumn of 2008, we found scaffolding up, and
a big programme of refurbishment in hand, including the
building of a meeting room and kitchen at the back of the
church. However, it was still clear what a magnificent
interior this is. It wasn't possible on that occasion to
see the church's famous Jacobean font cover, but I shall
add a photograph of it when I revisit. Some apologetic
but welcoming ladies were cleaning the nave for a
wedding, and so we stepped carefully over buckets and
mops to take a look at the great treasures of the church,
the painted Saints on the rood screen dado and pulpit.

They are
like no others in East Anglia, and although they have
been restored, particularly those on the pulpit, they
show that here was a devotion to some rather unfamiliar
Saints, and with some exotic iconography. The panels on
the pulpit appear earlier than those on the screen - or,
at least, most of them do. One appears to have been
painted by the same hand as the screen. The dedicatory
inscription of the screen gives a date of 1528. If the
pulpit was about 1480, but unfinished, it would explain
the odd panel out. Figures of note include St Catherine
of Sienna, St Bridget of Sweden, St Oswald and St Faith,
as well as the more familiar St Etheldreda, St Apollonia,
St Lucy, St Helen , St George, St John and St John the
Baptist. The panel of the Blessed Virgin and child on the
pulpit depicts a monk kneeling at her feet. Was he the
donor, or does he represent the inhabitants of the
Priory?

In recent
years, the local Methodists have moved in with the
Anglicans here, holding joint services. This is the kind
of thing which is likely to happen more and more in the
years to come, particularly in Norfolk, where there is a
strong Methodist tradition. I have already observed that
the setting of this church is urban in character, and
much the same could be said for the inside, but also in a
good way. The Victorians matched grandness for grandness,
but there are other medieval survivals, including some
good benches in the chancel.

The
19th Century furnishings of the nave, however,
are less satisfactory, giving a rather crowded
feel. How those great arcades pine for simple
wooden chairs beneath them! A curiosity at the
west end of the south aisle is that the last bay
was replaced in Victorian days with a sweeping
staircase up to the porch parvise - Dr Pevsner
described it as romanticised medievalish,
which I think meant that he didn't like it.

When you
visit a church like Horsham St Faith's, you can't
help recalling that we are within a few miles of
what was, in late medieval days, the second city
of England, and one of the great regional
capitals of Europe. But there was a church here
long before that, of course, for we have already
mentioned the Norman Priory. This is, as I have
said, now a private house, but it is occasionally
open for viewing, and contains what Pevsner
called the most impressive mid-13th century
scheme of wall paintings in England. As well
as the story of the Fitzwalters adventures which
led up to the founding of the Priory, it includes
a magnificent rood group, and a wonderfully
fresh figure of St Faith herself, excavated
in the 1960s. The story of the Fitzwalters'
journey to Spain, and their return to build the
Priory, includes a wheelbarrow, which Pevsner
notes is one of the earliest depictions of
this Chinese invention in western art.